Words fail me as I try to describe the stupa of skulls at the Killing Fields, marking tribute to the tens of thousands of victims of the Khmer Rouge reign in the seventies. With every rainy season, more skulls, bone fragments and even teeth appear through the dirt, with just over half the discovered mass graves having been excavated over the years. Thirty-two years on, there are only 5 people being put to trial over these atrocities, following their arrests made many years after they committed these crimes. And now, the Killing Fields are a popular site for both national and international tourists to visit and show their respects for the many deceased.

We only had a day and a half in Phnom Penh, with the lure of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap being too great. That, and our lovely hotel manager suggested that we could see everything we needed to see in less than two days. We took that into account and made the most of our time here, with a few nice memories of monkeys and temples to show for it. S-21 Jail and the Killing Fields deserve their own entries.

During the Khmer Rouge reign in Phnom Penh, from 1975-1979, a school was turned into a prison. Over the years, almost 10,000 people were imprisoned here, arrested for sometimes just assumed opposition to the new government. Very few made it out alive – more often they were put to death here, or at the Killing Fields. When the soldiers in charge fled the prison in 1979, the bodies of fourteen people (13 men and one woman) were found here, and have been buried on site. Today, the jail is open to the public, allowing visitors from all over the world to visit and understand just some of the atrocities that occurred here just over thirty years ago.